11/20/08-SCHOTT Solar on the Rio Grande: From German Glass to Global Energy by Rolf Nitsche, born in Sindelfingen, Germany. After military service he studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Hannover and received his Diploma in 1993. He started his professional career 1994 in Mainz at SCHOTT in the Melting Technology Department where he was planning, simulating and optimizing special glass melting furnaces. After two years in the Glass Ceramic Melting department he returned to the Melting Technology Department as a Department Manager for Job and Order Control. With his experience as a Project Manager for building the Hot End of a Display Glass Melting plant in Jena he moved 2007 to SCHOTT Solar and joined the site selection team for the new production site in the United States. He is now responsible, as the Senior Project Manager, for making the new SCHOTT Solar production plant in Albuquerque a reality.
11/8/08- A Portrait of the Latino Immigrant Population in the United States at the Turn of the 21st Century by Dr. Nadia Y. Flores, born in Mexico City, Nadia Y. Flores migrated with her family to the United States at the age of 15. After being a teenage mother and while pregnant with her third child in 1993, she returned to school. She became a U.S. Citizen in 1997. She received her B.A. degree in Social Science from the University of California – Irvine in 1999 and her M.A. degree in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) in 2001. In 2004 she became a visiting student fellow at Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology in May 2005 from UPENN. While at UPENN, she worked as a Research Assistant for the bi-national The Mexican Migration Project co-directed by Dr. Douglas Massey (now at Princeton University) and Dr. Jorge Duran (University of Guadalajara). Supported by a pilot grant from the Mellon Foundation and the Mexican Migration Project, Flores did the fieldwork for her dissertation in four communities in the State of Guanajuato, Mexico and in the U.S. Her doctoral dissertation was entitled: “The Interrelation between Social Context, Social Structure and Social Capital in International Migration Flows from Mexico to the United States: The Case of Guanajuato, Mexico.”
10/21/08- The Presidential Elections and the War in iraq by Dr. Mark Peceny, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. He teaches courses in the fields of international relations and American foreign policy and studies the relationship between democracy, dictatorship, and the international system. His book, Democracy at the Point of Bayonets (Penn State Press 1999) examines the promotion of democracy during U.S. military interventions. His articles, which examine how political regimes shape the behavior of states in the world and how the international system shapes democracy within states, have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, and the Latin American Research Review.
10/11/08-View from Across the Border by Dr. Rafael Fernandez de Castro. Dr. Rafael Fernandez de Castro, foreign policy advisor to Mexican president Felipe Calderón, will give a Mexican, and, in a broader sense, a Latin American perception of changes in US Latino communities, as well as the current state of US relations with Mexico and Latin America. He will pay special attention to Mexico’s reaction and adjustment to the new US immigration environment.
Rafael Fernández de Castro is the Founder, Chair and Professor of the Department of International Studies at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (currently on leave). He earned a BA in Political Science at ITAM, a Master’s in Public Policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in Political Science from Georgetown University.
Dr. Fernández de Castro is an expert on the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States, as well as on Mexican foreign policy. He has published numerous articles and several books, including United States and Mexico: Between Partnership and Conflict with Jorge Domínguez , The Controversial Pivot: The U.S. Congress and North America with Robert Pastor and Anuario México en el Mundo: Los desafíos para México en 2001; Cambio y continuidad en la política exterior de México (2002), En la frontera del Imperio (2003) and La agenda internacional de México 2006-2012 (2006). He is also co-coordinator of the Routledge Press Series on Contemporary Inter-American Relations since 2000. Furthermore, he has taken part in important forums such as the Binational Panel on Migration, which published the U.S.-Mexico Binational Study on Migration, and the World Economic Forum (Davos-2007) as both panelist and moderator. Rafael Fernández de Castro is active in the printed media. Not only is he the editor of Foreign Affairs en Español, the sister magazine of Foreign Affairs, but he also has a column in the weekly magazine Proceso and in the newspaper Excélsior, two of the most important printed media in Mexico.
9/12/08-Immigration: A Perfect Storm by Dr. Michael Olivas. Michael A. Olivas is the William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Houston Law Center and Director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at UH. In 1989-90, he was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin, and Special Counsel to then-Chancellor Donna Shalala. In 1997, he held the Mason Ladd Distinguished Visiting Chair at the University of Iowa College Of Law. He holds a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) from the Pontifical College Josephinum, an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. He is the author or co-author of twelve books on immigration. In 2010, Harvard University Press will publish his 13th book, on the subject of undocumented immigrant children. He has been elected to membership in the American Law Institute and the National Academy of Education, the only person to have been selected to both honor academies. He was elected to the American Bar Foundation (ABF). He served as General Counsel to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) from 1994-98. He has chaired the AALS Section on Education Law three times, and has twice chaired the Section on Immigration Law. In 1993, he was chosen as Division J’s Distinguished Scholar by the American Educational Research Association, and in 1994, he was awarded the Research Achievement Award by the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). ASHE also gave him its 2000 Special Merit Award. He has been designated as a NACUA Fellow by the National Association of College and University Attorneys.
9/4/08-Pandemic: Are you ready? by Dr. Olmstead. Dr. Olmstead received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of New Mexico and her medical degree from the UNM School of Medicine. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.
Since 2006, Dr. Olmstead has been the Medical Director of NM Travel Health, and Olmstead Health Care Services where she specializes in international travel health, vaccinations, and pandemic planning. Dr. Olmstead previously served as National Medical Director for Concentra Medical Centers Travel Medicine Program and developed their pandemic manual. Dr Olmstead is certified as a travel medicine specialist by the International Society of Travel Medicine and is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine. She has served as a sub-investigator in numerous clinical trials. In addition, she has written and lectured extensively on subjects relating to travel medicine and health, occupational medicine and pandemic planning.
5/21/08- Intel: 40 Years of Changing the World by Jami Grindatto. Jami Grindatto is the New Mexico Corporate Affairs Director for Intel’s New Mexico site in Rio Rancho, NM, directing government affairs, media & communications, education and community relations. Jami joined Intel in 1994. He led the Factory Automation Architecture design used in Intel’s newest 300mm silicon wafer fabrication processes, directed the Itanium® Independent Software Vendor enablement effort, and was Director of the Americas for Intel® Solution Services. Jami is the recipient of the 1999 Intel Achievement Award. He’s active in the community and a member of several boards, including the Governor’s Business Executives for Education, New Mexico First, and he is the 2007 Chairman of the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce.
New Faces of Russia- Spring 2008
5/3/08- Modern and Contemporary Photography in Russia: the Early 20th and 21st Centuries by Steve Yates. Yates returns from a rare third Fulbright Scholars Award over the last academic year in Russia. As a museum curator, international lecturer, essayist, researcher, photographer and Adjunct Professor, he was invited to teach in universities, museums and libraries in Moscow to cities throughout the country. His unprecedented collaborations over the past two decades with Russian artists, photographers, curators, historians and educators as well as museums, national centers, galleries, archives and libraries, helps lay the groundwork for new history.
4/17/08- Reform in the Russian Courts after Perestroika: The Rule of Law or Rule of Putin? by Norman Meyer. Norman Meyer has been providing technical assistance to the Russian courts since 1999. A series of pilot courts were established to introduce administrative reforms (in such areas as facilities, records, human resources, security, automation, case management, and public access), and those reforms are now being spread across the country. Overhauls of national rules for case processing and training programs for court administrators and staff have also been accomplished. He has made fourteen trips to Russia, primarily working with the Russian Judicial Department to improve the general jurisdiction trial courts. His court work in Russia has brought him to the cities of Angarsk, Irkutsk, Kaluga, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, Novgorod Veliki, Pushkin, Sochi, St. Petersburg, and Zhukov.
4/5/08- The New Face of Russia by Dr. Marina Oborotova, President of the Center for International Studies, sponsoring organization for the Albuquerque International Association. She was born in Moscow, graduated from Moscow State University for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Foreign Office and worked as a senior researcher for the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russia’s leading think-tank. Her career includes experience in many parts of the world in foreign policy, international business, academic research, and university level teaching. She has also organized and administrated projects in Russia, the United States, Latin America and Asia. She has written two books and over 40 articles on foreign relations and has presented numerous papers at international conferences. In the U.S. she has taught at the University of New Mexico (the Departments of Political Science, Anderson School of Management and Honors Program), worked as Director of International Programs at Technology Commercialization, and as a program manager for the United States Industry Coalition.
Foreign Policy Challenges for the New Administration- Winter 2008
2/13/08-Global Economic Challenges for the New Administration by Kimberly Ann Elliot, Senior Fellow, has been associated with the Peterson Institute for International Economics since 1982 and has authored numerous works on a variety of trade policy and globalization issues. Building on her expertise as a trade strategist, including the use of economic sanctions and trade threats in the pursuit of national and commercial goals, Ms. Elliot has turned to broader globalization issues. Her expertise in this area will help us prepare, as an individual and as a nation, for our international economic future.
2/1/08- Global Security Challenges for the New Administration by Dr. Thomas Mahnken, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Planning, US Department of Defense. There is no shortage of security threats facing the President. In addition to the presence of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the next President and Commander is Chief will quickly need to set the course for the nation in dealing with domestic terrorism and how to balance freedom and security, radical Islam; the rise of China; the Middle East; nuclear proliferation, and emerging tensions rising from competition for energy, climate change, and pandemic disease. Tom Mahnken’s full time job is to assess these challenges and recommend strategically constructive responses.
1/25/08- US Foreign Policy System: If It Is Broke, Fix It by Dr. Adam Garfinkle. Dr. Adam Garfinkle was a member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff. He is Editor of the American Interest, the first international affairs journal to be launched in the last two decades. He has held an appointment as adjunct Professorial Lecturer in American Foreign Policy at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the Johns Hopkins University. He has also taught U.S. foreign policy and Middle East politics at the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, and Tel Aviv University. Dr. Garfinkle has also served as a member of the National Security Study Group of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission).
